A Lopsided Table

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After his online selection, he was toasting his success alone with a fake-frappe. Being the only one without an internship was not something he had imagined. While his batch would be tagged by big labels after these two months, he would still be a nobody.

“Oh! I could be the only startup intern.” Thinking that brought him more remorse than relief. “Why was I even chosen? All I ever did was read fiction.” he wondered gulping down the brown beverage.

A call for an early joining failed to excite him, but he dressed up anyway. Not too much, although he felt a tie was a must. After all, first impressions count.

Finding the place in Delhi’s summer is such a piece of cake with a fucked-up GPS.

“I’m standing in the middle of nowhere.”

Soon he saw a skinny guy whose shirt swirled with the air as he marched towards him. He wished him to be knowing where this address would take him, instead he was questioned, “Intern?”

“Ah! Yeah!”

“Walk with me”

Slithering through the tiny lanes, they reached a dark building which the skinny guy confirmed as the office. Climbing up, the first thing that caught the new eyes were empty shells of Red Bull rolling on the table, followed by some bean bags sunken in by three other guys with overgrown beard. Not that he wasn’t used to it, he just wasn’t expecting it in his internship.

A place and a work was assigned to him which he did religiously. Arrived on time, left on time. Within a week, he was able to make out that the founder was the most stingy and scrooge of all.

*A month later*

Internship was about to end.

Not that it was an exceptionally hot day, but it was the intern alone with the scrooge that made the former sweat relentlessly.

“We’re out of Cans. Let’s grab some coffee.”

The intern upped his spooked-up face, turned down his laptop, and they walked out to a nearby CCD outlet.

“Two latte.”

They sat down at a table and scrooge got talking. Finding him talk like a human made him stutter.

*Coffee was served*

Scrooge guzzled in as if he found his oasis on a broken table. In that attempt, foam rolled down his mustache to his two months-old beard. It skied the forest like a pro.

The intern couldn’t control himself from cracking-up. Befuddled, scrooge glanced to the side mirror and joined his guffaw.

*momentary silence*

Another drop skied down and a chorus cackle.

Since that day till the weekend the internship ended, latte replaced some of the Red Bulls.

The last week was the intern’s best week, merry enough to make him intern at the same place for the next three years. He’d heard from his seniors how workplaces usually worked.

Coffees were for rant-bonding against a common enemy called “the boss”.

Pity! He and his fellow interns never got that chance.

When it came to the final placements, he joined an MNC, and today, was his first day.

Sitting in his plush cabin, watching his lopsided glass table being replaced, he recalled all those cold coffees and stimulating hot discussions.

He gazed into his reflection. He was again ‘tied’ today.

Nestled in his over-sized comfortable chair, holding a mug in his hand he thought of all the coffees that would be cheered against his name in the coming days, for his batch-mates will now reporting to him. Their coffee would be cold. Though he’ll always get the chilled one. Not cold, or warm-cold, but chilled.

And though there was coffee in the cabin, the place smelled, and felt, entirely different. Indifferent.